Some predictions

• The "insider stories" from the past week, once they emerge, are going to contain a lot of angry House GOP quotes about the people in their party that, for their own personal gain, voted against a fiscal cliff deal that they knew had to be passed.
• Why: if it hadn't passed, the House GOP would have found itself the target of popular (not just elite) scorn, McConnell would have lost all credibility as a negotiator, and Obama could have sat back and waited for a legitimate proposal from the roadblock.
• Yet, because this is a compromise that didn't cut spending, no one from a Solid-Red district is going to enjoy defending their vote.
• The conservative media is going to be split in the same way.
• There's going to be a lot of GOP hankering in two months about not having spending cuts in this vote. 
• There's going to be a lot of Dem hankering in two months about making so much of the 2003 tax cuts permanent.
• There's going to be a HUGE amount of hankering in two years when the Democratic loved tax breaks expire. (note the difference there)
• It will remain advantageous for politicians to talk about how Washington is broken while actively opposing efforts to fix it.